DONEGAL playwright Frank McGuinness has a remarkable talent for making theatre out of the embattled male psyche. Yet he writes beautifully of women, original creatures all in his texts: ‘The Factory Girls’, the film script of ‘Dancing with Lughnasa’ that wooed Meryl Streep. He won a Tony award for his revival of ‘A Doll’s House’.
Perhaps robust survival became an achievement of his own along the way. McGuinness has his fine intellect to recommend him and there’s a luminous grace to some of his protaganists, forever in the trenches against the sods of life. ‘Observe the Sons of Ulster’ won the Ewart-Biggs Peace Prize among the critical kudos that go from here to eternity.
Cut to ‘Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me’, arriving in Lime Tree Theatre on Saturday February 10, 8pm on the cusp of an eight week tour.
When you consider the lullaby of the lyric of its title vis-a-vis the “harrowing”, “compelling” subject matter and effect on the audience, the novel workings of this playwright’s mind hit.
Andrew Flynn of Decadent Theatre Company in Galway is tooling a new production of the show he took on the road over four years, more than a decade ago. This is the play inspired by the Lebanon-held hostages Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Northern Ireland’s Brian Keenan, men who were confined in a pit for years, all rights and privacy robbed in ransom.
“I directed it first 13 years ago in 2004,” Flynn recalls in a break from rehearsal. “It is a remarkable play that he wrote while Brian Keenan was still in captivity. It’s McGuinness’ imagined version of what it was like to be a hostage. He did not stage it until Brian was released and he had got his blessing.”
Decadent did a fine job first time out, going to Broadway. While the critics were not overwhelmed, “audiences loved it and it lasted six months. That was unheard of at the time,” for this little Irish company.
“In ‘Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me’, what McGuinness comes down to is how the human spirit is a very strong thing.”
Laughter is vital in the compact dark of the Arab dungeon: “They laugh, they fight, they cry and do so with an awareness that they need to, to survive”.
There is lots of dialogue, lots of monologue and the device of letter writing. Letters are read out to us as there will never be a stamp or service to post: “They get the words out”.
A make believe world of films, horse racing, whatever the men want, they bring to life – without props – to entertain and calm sanity. “Movies, they create them in their mind and that’s part of the vehicle of the piece. They all share the same fears, similar hopes, speak of dreams.”
An evolving relationship between the emotionally aware English man Michael and Belfast’s hard Edward affects the director most: “This play says an awful lot about grace, kindness and compassion”.
Come for the laughs and cry. www.limetreeththeatre.ie
